


Never Walk Past A Cupboard

by Dopredo



Series: World's Your Oyster [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Comedy, Deke and Fitz, F/M, Family, Hugs, Laughter, One Shot, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, cute relationships, deke and daisy, gramps - Freeform, people want to kill you, saving the team, season 6, trapped in cupboards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 06:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17421176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dopredo/pseuds/Dopredo
Summary: In the midst of trying to save the team, Daisy ends up trapped in a building full of people who want to kill her, and finds herself hiding in a cupboard with someone she never would have expected…





	Never Walk Past A Cupboard

**Author's Note:**

> SET AT THE START OF SEASON 6, AFTER THE SNAP HAS BEEN RESOLVED.
> 
> Deke has gone travelling and Daisy has taken a break from SHIELD. Also, this story assumes that the team had managed to find the alternate version of Fitz floating in space.

The stars pricked yellow holes through the rich blackness of the callous night, observing the scene that was about to take place before them. Narrow rows of trees that lined the - now deserted - road swayed dubiously in the cold breeze, while every shadowy building seemed to hold a gloomy disposition of silence. Somewhere amidst this obscuring darkness, dancing quietly along the tops of buildings, was Daisy Johnson. 

Dressed all in black, with her hair falling messily around her shoulders, Daisy Johnson readied herself for a party. She had been told by a friend to meet at a specific address in Madrid, and since she had taken a break from SHIELD, she felt perhaps it was good for her to let her hair down. Despite that however, she couldn’t bare the idea of spending longer than an hour with prissy posh people who ate caviar and drank Champaign that probably cost the same as the price on her head. For that reason she was passing some time along the rooftops of Madrid, before finally reaching her destination.

When at last Daisy reached the plush (set of) apartments that belonged to her friend, Daisy jumped off the roof of the building and landed with a soft thump by the door. The security guard jumped, clearly a little taken aback, but recognised her as a guest and beckoned her in.  
The building was just as beautiful inside as it had been outside. It sparkled with a clean coherence that Daisy had never seen at SHIELD (and probably would never have wanted to). Her friend, who had been notified of her arrival, rushed up to greet her, and reached out to give her a hug. Once released, Daisy smiled awkwardly and scratched her head.

‘Wow, Greta,’ she smiled, ‘this place is amazing.’ Just what I was expecting. She thought.

Daisy had met Greta in the month after she left SHIELD for a ‘holiday’. She had been travelling in the Canary Islands (finally using the money she had built up from her many tears of working at SHIELD) when some people had recognised her and tried to rat her out to the authorities. Greta had offered her a place to hide until it died down. 

‘Daisy you’re so late. I swear agents are meant to have better time-keeping than this.’ Greta rolled her eyes and ushered her towards the room where the party seemed to be taking place.

‘Yeah, sorry I got held up.’ Daisy lied.

The party was the exact opposite of Daisy’s idea of fun. Everyone was so reserved, and kept asking her too many questions. But despite it being everything Daisy had expected from a posh-party, and she tried desperately to let her guard down, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was just a little off. Whenever she came back into the room, having gone to the toilet, or gone to get another drink, everyone would glance at her, as though they had been wondering where she had gone. Having been slightly creeped out by this, she went to look for Greta. When she couldn’t find her, she thought she’d be a little nosy, and went downstairs to look at more of the incredible apartments. She treaded carefully on the stairs, making sure not to alert anyone of where she was. After all, she was a spy – she was good at this.

Daisy became attentive when she heard her name whispered from behind the second door in the corridor. The door, labelled ‘Pulpo Oculto’ was ever-so-slightly open; enough that Daisy could hear what was being said if she listened closely, but it was too small to peer through.  
Daisy could hear Greta’s voice, along with a man’s. They were halfway through a conversation that, without context, made no sense to Daisy. It also didn’t help that some of the conversation was in Spanish.

‘But she’s the last one left. Well that’s if we’re not counting all of the random people that were picked up along the way. But then I suppose they would be useful. ¡Necesitamos encontrar toda la tribu escudo!’

‘Ok John, calmáte.’ Greta sighed. There was a pause where Daisy imagined her pacing. ‘Daisy’s here right now, so there’s nothing to worry about.’

Daisy felt guilty for having intruded on the conversation, but she was nonetheless curious. Could it be that this man – John – was threatened by her?

‘Ok, but you still haven’t answered my question.’ John grumbled, ‘I know the rest of SHIELD are more useful in our basement, but for Daisy Johnson, considering how powerful she is, should we aim to capture or kill?’

Those next words took Daisy completely off-guard. She started to back away from the door slowly, but in her panic she made a fatal error. She stood on a floorboard.

Suddenly the conversation from inside the room faltered, and there was a deadly moment of pause.

‘What was that?’ John said.

His creaking footsteps echoed in Daisy’s mind, as they got closer towards her. She was running. Down the corridor – away from the party, away from the woman she thought was her friend. She wasn’t dressed for this.

As she ran down the corridor she tried to open the doors to the apartments, but they were all locked. Thinking it was perhaps best not to alert everyone in the building that she was hiding there, she decided not to quake down any doors, and instead sprinted to the end of the corridor. There in her sight she saw her escape. It was a terrible idea. It would almost definitely not work, but in this second no one could see her, and everyone would assume she had run down the stairs. Despite being an old-fashioned hiding place it would have to do. There before her was an, exceedingly small-looking, cupboard. 

She crawled inside the cramped, dark room, and pushed herself against the back wall. The footsteps were approaching now – so many it sounded like an army. If they found her that would be it: she’d stand no chance of finding her friends. Her heart skipped a beat as the footsteps paused for a second in front of her cupboard. But then something incredible happened, something perhaps even cliché: the footsteps moved on.

Daisy waited inside the room for a few more hours, listening to footsteps go by in waves as they searched for her. Eventually she assumed they had given up, but she stayed in the cupboard anyway just to be sure. This time was good for her, as it allowed her to think. She wondered where her friends were being kept – the man, John, had said something about a basement – perhaps that wasn’t metaphorical and they were really being kept on the bottom floor? She was going to have to be quite crafty if she was going to get there unnoticed. 

All was quiet for the next part of an hour, until Daisy heard something from just beyond her door. She could tell it was a person, however it wasn’t like any of the footsteps she had heard from the people chasing her. It sounded more like someone was (poorly) trying to sneak up on her. Or sneak away from something else...  
As the footsteps got closer, Daisy began to panic that they had discovered her location. There was a small click as the handle of the heavyweight door squeaked open. Daisy poised herself, arm extended, ready for a fight.

But that was not necessary. The man who, of yet, Daisy couldn’t identify closed the door behind him, and very much like Daisy had done, squeezed himself against the other back corner. He clearly hadn’t noticed Daisy was there, so she decided to notify him.

‘You’re hiding too, are you?’ She laughed, dryly.

The man jumped and then gasped.

‘Daisy? Is that you?’

Daisy was confused for a second, and then was astounded. Those words surely couldn’t have been coming from who she thought they were.

‘Deke? Come on, no way!’ She gasped, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’

‘Well, the same reason as you, I think.’

‘What?’ Daisy joked, ‘you came to a party and then realised everyone there wanted to kill you?’

‘Yeah – wait what? No! I’m here to rescue the team. I got a message from some random person giving me a location, and telling me to rescue them. He said his name was like… Nick Fury or something - bit of a dumb name. You did know that they’re being kept here though, right?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Daisy sighed, ‘I overhear a conversation between Greta and this guy John. He said they were “more use” in the basement - whatever that means.’

‘Yeah well he would say that.’ Deke groaned, grabbing a torch from his pocket and shining it in Daisy’s eyes. She winced and put her hand over her eyes, shaking her head in glad irritation towards Deke’s strange ways. ‘John’s a psychopathic Hydra-murderer… or at least he is according to SHIELD’s secret Wikipedia. See look – I just made a modern reference!’ 

‘Well done Deke,’ Daisy grumbled (secretly quite happy that travelling had taught him more about the modern world) ‘wait back up one – did you say John was Hydra?’ 

‘What? Oh yeah – Hydra. I didn’t know what that meant – sorry if it’s a rude word or something.’

‘No, no it isn’t… Hydra’s like the anti-SHIELD, for… bad agents. But if this place really is Hydra, then I bet there’s a secret base below it.’

‘Yeah I know.’ Deke nodded assuredly. Daisy furrowed her eyebrows.

‘Huh? How did you know that--- and don’t you dare tell me you got if off the SHIELD wiki!’

Deke looked at her for a second, slightly dazed, and then smiled goofily.

‘Oh no that bit I just figured out.’

Daisy frowned confusedly, about to question him, and then thought better of it and shrugged.

‘You know what, I’m not even going to ask. A different question though – how did you know I was in the cupboard?’

‘Huh? Oh I didn’t – that was just luck I guess. I mean everyone hides in the cupboard when they don’t want to be found, because for some reason everyone else walks past it dumbly. How did you think I survived so many renewals?’

Daisy shook her head at him astounded and then rolled her eyes.

‘Well I guess I’m glad you’re here. Let’s figure out a way to free our friends.’

Within an hour, Deke and Daisy had created a plan that would allow them to sneak into the base. Even while they had been planning it, Daisy thought perhaps it was a little elaborate, however by the time it came to executing it, she was almost 100% convinced it wasn’t going to work.

‘This is a bad idea.’ 

Deke looked back at her from the door and smiled.

‘Hey, don’t worry. This is going to work, I can feel it.’

‘Ok well that’s weird, because I have the exact opposite feeling, and only one of us can be right.’

‘Well I mean… if it doesn’t work I was kind of hoping you’d just quake everything, and you know,’ he gestured with his hands, ‘clear a path…’ 

‘Right. So your plan requires my plan to fail. Now I have to make the real plan work.’

Deke laughed.

‘It’s totally possible. If it works you can give me 20… dollar things. And, you know, the other way around when I find some…’

‘Yeah ok, I’ll take that deal.’ Daisy smiled. She had missed her friends, and she’d been particularly worried about Deke. All of these new things suddenly changing his world – she knew he’d struggle to understand all the social intricacies (much like the SHIELD team had when they had first appeared at the lighthouse). Besides, Daisy had learnt how little Deke understood about the modern world right at the beginning, when she’d picked him up from the police station!

Deke poked his head out of the door to check if the coast was clear, and then beckoned for Daisy to follow him. Once they reached the stairs, Daisy leaned over the banister to see if there was anyone standing guard on the floors below. She began to run down the stairs elegantly, Deke following behind (not so elegantly).

The bottom floor of the apartments seemed to be a cleaning floor. There was very little there except a small cupboard, a mop and an empty cleaning bucket that seemed unused. That was Hydra’s first mistake.

‘You see that?’ Daisy whispered, turning to look behind her with the worry that someone was following them. 

‘What? There’s like nothing here except that amazing soap that smells of oranges. Come on, maybe there’s another way to the basement.’

‘No wait.’ She grabbed Deke’s arm as he turned to walk away, and cocked her head towards the cupboard. ‘It’s too clean. I mean, look at this place – it’s spotless. That would not be the case if it had been cleaned with a mop that looks unused.’

Walked towards the mop and picked it up from the ground. Deke furrowed his eyebrows, intrigued by what Daisy was doing. She aimed the mop towards the cupboard, pulled the door open and bashed at the inside.

‘Haha, I’ve got it!’ She laughed. Deke ran towards her and grinned when he saw what was inside the cupboard.

‘A secret passageway…’

‘Yeah I know. We should have learnt by now, having spent hours inside one!’ 

‘Never walk past a cupboard.’ They said in unison.

Deke and Daisy walked down the narrow corridor that had opened up in front of them, until eventually they could see a light source coming from the end.

‘Ok, are you ready?’ Daisy asked Deke, grimacing slightly.

‘Yeah, we’re gonna smash this.’ He whispered back. ‘And if we don’t, you can smash them.’

Daisy rolled her eyes but there was still a hint of a smile on her face. As they approached the end of the passageway, she readied herself for their plan. Deke grinned at her and they walked into the light.

‘I’ve got her!’ Deke yelled, grabbing Daisy tightly by her collar and flinging her into the room. Daisy scowled at him and threw her palm towards him (as if she was about to quake him) but nothing happened. She tried again and the panic on her face was evident.

‘What did you do?’ She screamed fearfully. Deke smiled sadistically, and pulled something out of his pocket. It was a syringe.

‘Did you really think that all this did was made you a little drowsy? Come on sweetheart; we’re smarter than that.’

‘But… but… is it permanent?’

‘Yes. Of course it’s permanent. It was developed by our finest agents. You are going to live out the rest of your days in a cell. Just like your friends. Watching us torture them day after day, week after week. Fitz-Simmons is it? Yep they’re gonna be tortured. And Mack. And that weird speedy girl…’ Deke paused and looked her in the eyes. ‘All you’ll know is that you can do nothing about it.’ 

The people in the room had gathered their senses by now, and clearly had been prepped for a situation similar to what was going on. Deke beckoned to a nerdy-looking young man in the corner and gave an irritated and slightly exasperated snarl. ‘Why are we still here?’ He roared. ‘Come on! Anyone would think you’re SHIELD agents – the anti-Hydra! Show us to where you’re keeping the others. I want them to know that we’ve captured their precious Daisy Johnson. I want them to know they’ve got no hope.’

The man scurried away to grab the keys to the cell, and returned promptly to show them the way. As they walked towards it, Daisy winked at Deke; slightly entertained by his speech, but also impressed.

‘That was one hell of a performance.’ She whispered.

‘Yeah, you too.’ Deke smiled.

The young man turned around when they reached the cell, and handed the key to Deke.

‘Spend as long as you like,’ he coughed, ‘just make sure none of them escape… They’re good at that. We’ve temporarily disabled Elena Rodriguez’s abilities, but they’re all pretty good fighters. So… you know…’

‘Watch out?’ Deke chipped in. ‘Yeah. Got it.’ He looked expectantly at the young man who was still standing beside them. He blushed and moved away swiftly. As soon as he was out of earshot, Deke unlocked the door and pushed Daisy inside, following closely behind.

The first person Daisy saw was Mack, who was sitting on the concrete bench closest to the door. His face was the only one in the room that was reflecting the light of the single dusty yellow lamp that was swinging from the ceiling. When he noticed Daisy his face lit up.

‘Daisy? Is that you?’ 

At the word ‘Daisy’ everyone in the room turned to look, and suddenly she was surrounded by hugs from Mack, Yo-Yo, May, Fitz and Simmons. Deke looked at the ground and scratched his head awkwardly. Simmons noticed him and pulled him into a hug.

‘Thank you Deke.’ She smiled. ‘I feel like you’ve probably played more of a part in this than anyone is going to give you credit for.’

Deke grinned and nodded sweetly.

‘I don’t mind. I’m just glad I found you guys. When I heard you’d been captured I realised that maybe travelling would be better with friends. Wait I can call you my friends, right?’ He winced and bit his lip.

‘We’re your friends Deke. Don’t worry.’ Simmons laughed, rolling her eyes at his awkwardness. Fitz came over to join them and slapped Deke on the shoulder affectionately.

‘Ow,’ Deke frowned, rubbing his shoulder, ‘gramps.’ Simmons choked back a laugh and grinned at Fitz who seemed exceptionally un-amused. As the team gathered together to discuss a plan, an alarm sounded above them and Deke and Daisy looked at each other knowingly.

‘Right. How are we going to get out of here.’


End file.
